Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-07-09
Lii DANA MExIf ANA.
0sH EXPERIENCE SUFFICIENT FOR
4 LIFETIME.
How tie Mexican Dance Affected g.
Dignified New Yorker-BaiIes
de Compadres.
Special RrooRD-UsIos Correspondence

Issecial REooRB-USIos Csrrespondencel
CRY OF MEXICO, June %, 1887.
Congratulate me-for in the words OF the
immortal Webster, f" still live" even after
having participated in a Mexican darzef
For an unmarried lady of social standing
TO attend a public ball of this description,
though escorted by her father or brothers,
is considered rather daring thing to do
yet last nights crowd attested that MANY
do attend them. In the innocence of my
heart, sctuated by pure journalists fervor
in pursuit of information, accepted the
invitation-and now quite agree with that
American who remarked, a man may
ddn-G in the innocence of his heart Just
once"
You ask, What is la ddn=a ?" II some
thing impossible to define in cold black and
white, TO be read at long range amid pro-
sale surroundings; it could not occur any,
where but among these poetical passionate
races OF the tropics, and cannot even be
understood by one of northern birth-un-
less he has lived here long enough to get
something of the climate into his blood
1t is the most innocent-looking dance in
the world-no mo,e harm in it. to merely
look at, than in champagne glass, or in
the unloaded pistol which
GOES OFF" AT SOME UNwARY MOMENT
And maybe murders your grandmother.
The music is slow-so very slow that
Northern belle would re-belle at once
the quiet step is simply the bdlence- of the
dancing-master's quadrille, with the i'm
portant addition that this is q round
dance
With this lazy step you move backward
and forward, or gently turn around when
ever the crowd gives you room, until you
come face to face with another couple as
sleepy as yourselves, with whom you exc
cute that stupid fright hand across to
cross over and back exactly as in our
pinafore- days. Then the
gentleman's arm encircles his partners
waist, she leans on his shoulder and gives
her right hand to his left and in this little
quadrille they bdleace2 until it is time to re-
sumo the tete-a-tete. This is all there is of
it-and what could possibly appear more
innocent?
But appearances are sometimes deceittuI.
aud the dance depends altogether upon
who dances it. Certainly, the racquet -
in q Northern ballroom (it wouldn't be
possible here) looks fully as demoralizing
but probably the vast difference lies in
are as unlike the dudes and debutantes of
other chimes as the HORSEPOWER differs from
the hollyhock or the warmth of the tropic
sun from the half glimmer of an aurora
borealis. These creatures of impulse are no
more to be judged by the same rules which
apply to phlegmatic Apglo-Saxons than
John Smith or Sarah Jones would enlist
our sympathies if they behaved exactly as
Romeo or Juliet. Therefore it is that in
loot osa+tv <,f& Ill T.
are not permitted to engage in the dance
except with their brothers or nearest OF
kin, not even with the lovers TO whom they
are betrothed, and married ladies only with
their husbands-very sensible etiquette by
the way, but would be bettered if unmarried
folk were prohibited from dancing ii at all.
These guileless senoritas, with their con-
vent breeding their ignorance of books and
all the restrictions that necessarily environ
females SO near the equator are not M
in the ways of the world. Not one of them
could tell you word about theosophv or
protoplasms or bathybius, never having
heard of such things in all their lives.
They are
NATURES FAyoRITE CHILDREN,
Governed by tropical instincts rather than
by the trammels of education, and as CO.
quettish as unsophisticated. While their
minds lie fallow as a fertile field, their
hearts have been ripening like q prize
strawberry in q lighthouse, or like one of
their giant aloes, which gives its life to the
poisoning.
For an example-an exceedingly fair
one-let US take the belle of last nights
ball: A slim and languid young lady,
aged nineteen, is the Senorita Antonia
-, one of the loveliest girls in this land
where all women are lovely in youth and (,
incomparably ugly at middle-age; but her |
greatest charm is in that INDISPENSABLE |
manner which the French call abandon. |
All her life has been passed in the fiowerv |
court of her massive home, and all she |
has seen of the world has been the daily |
panorama from the balcony, or from the |
closed carriage during the sunset drive.
Feeling the spirit of the DANA in every
tiber she fairly palpitated to the music
and moved like a winged Mercury upon
her tiny, high-heeled slippers. To be sure,
her rosebud mouth was far more sug-
gestive to her partners olfactories Of the
garlic and chill she had eaten for supper
than of its floral prototype; but her fine
teeth and ripping laugh atoned for that.
and though her soft cheek upon his shout
der adorned his Sunday coat with a broad
epaulet of rice-powder, he didn't seem to
mind it in the least, especially when her
great dark eyes were raised to his,
of the ponderous type, both in mind, body
and bank-account-down here intent on
business schemes of magnitude and being
a friend of pat 9rfan las, longer young,
was permitted to dance with the giddy An
tonia as the safest of partners.
She, evidently, didn't like it so well.
There was certain young Francisco |
lowering about the edges of the ballroom |
and looking at her with love-lit eyes who
afa1 70 l,ar II. Il
she couldn't dana with him, YOU know.
and it would never do to be rude to the |
stranger Americana who was papas friend;
SO the dear girl submitted with charming
grace, having first telegraphed from under
her eyelids a protest and apology to the
adorable francisco. Well,
TUE wANDERER FROM WALL STREET
who was perhaps 45 years old-a good
age to Antonia), wishing to " do up brown -
all the social requirements of the Mexican |
capital, and thereby render himself solid in |
business, first looked timidly around to see |
how others were disporting themselves |
On the floor everybody was in everybody |
else's embrace, moving slowly TO the music |
and licking serene and sleepy; so, hoping
Mrs. Haii-Street at home would remember |
that when in Rome it is necessary to do as
the Romans, hetook the little creature in the
angle eff his strdng right arm and resigned
hlmsel to circumstances. She, intke inno-
cent abandon of her nature, placed her
powdery cheek Just benesth his penderous
jowl, thereby Olinding his eyes with the
hrffest of jetty bangs" snuggled her
plump figure, which had never known the
manacling of a corset, as close to His waist
coat as possible. gave him her <1ngloved
hand, and away they dcszaed, as lazily as
Eberest
Being so slow, the dcnsa is & dance OF
confidence, sInd low murmurs, gentle
whispers and light laughter arose from
every side, IS each eeaple enjoyed the
closest OF tete-a-tetes. Tae night was hot
n this lotus land. the ballroom crowded
and the air heavy with perfume The
music was not the ear-spS;tting crash bang
bum-bum of an American orchestra but
silver-tnroated instruments, assisted by the
flute, guitar and mandolin. rendered airs
sweet and sensCous to woe the SOU out of
q wooden InSian. All. this Southern
music 1t plays a not unimportant part in
the romance of Andalusisn love making.
as any staid Anglo-Saxon who has come
within its influence can testify.
The myriad candles burned dimiv and
added more of warmth than light ID the
room. Sc rarifieS is the atmosphere in
sAls vale Of Anahusc-over seven thousand